

i23 





TO THE HON. W. J. GRAYSON. 



>ir : 



You have thought proper to publish a second edition 
of your letter on the dissolution of the Union, and to 
follow it by a reply to' "One of the People." Your per- 
severance in this matter is my excuse for calling further 
attention to your position and views. In doing so, I 
shall endeavour to avoid such expressions as might injure 
your feelings, or seem to impute to you mercenary mo- 
tives for the course you have pursued. But whilst I do 
not call in question your motives, I feel bound to urge 
certain matters, important to this discussion, which may 
not be altogether pleasant to you. As to any effect 
which your opinions might have in our own State, we 
have no fears whatever, for we are united and prepared 
for the emergency of disunion. But your letters are cal- 
culated to produce the impression abroad, that we have 
opposition in this matter at home, and it therefore be- 
comes important that the contrary should be well known. 
You stand almost alone in the opinion you have ex- 
pressed, and your position I regard as sufficiently ac- 
counted for by the fact, that you hold an honorable and 
lucrative office under the general government. I am 
aware that you contend, for the doctrine of independence 
in office, and that you have the right, notwithstanding 
your position, to express and publish your opinions. 
That, however, is not the point. The question is not 
one of right, but of undue influence. You surely do not 
mean to assert that the opinions of men are not ordina- 
rily influenced by their interests. This would be a pro- 
position so utterly untenable, that its refutation is ac- 
complished by merely stating it clearly. Indeed, this 
abstract notion of official independence, which seems so 
manly in theory, has seldom been found a thing desirable 
in practice. Unfortunately for the theory, its applica- 



2 

tion has been chiefly on one side of the question. Very 
many office holders have zealously maintained the mea- 
sures of their government, whilst few have been bold 
enough to assert their independence on the opposite side; 
fewer still have done so openly and over their proper sig- 
natures. Unless, therefore, you had furnished some evi- 
dence ot your being exempt from the ordinary frailties 
of your race, the mere assertion of your right to inde- 
pendence in office, was nothing to the purpose. You 
still leave us fairly to the conclusion that your connexion 
with the government might be sufficient to account for 
your opinions. 

This conclusion is strengthened by the fact, that 
before you were an office holder, you entertained 
opinions different from those you now express. The 
measures of the government to which you now ad- 
vise submission, are closely kindred to those you once 
opposed. They are also far more oppressive and danger- 
ous in their tendencies. Once in the exercise of your right 
to resist such measures, you were not easily alarmed, 
but even ventured to put in peril the existence of your 
State. Now, the union of the Southern States to resist 
like measures, seems to you the extreme of madness. 
But you say that you did not then advocate disunion. It 
is true, you did not. But you supported a measure far 
more dangerous, and not half so effective. So dangerous 
was the measure, that you did not hesitate to prepare 
arms and form companies of minute men for the emer- 
gency. But you claim that one may change, "that it is 
better to be right than to be consistent — that as we grow 
older, we should at least endeavour to grow wdser." This 
is all true, and yet if that change be in the direction of 
one's interest, he must expect to be judged by the com- 
mon notions of human nature, and that the influence of 
his opinions will be thereby diminished. To this fate, 
however unwilling, you must submit in the present in- 
stance. Your arguments must stand by themselves, un- 
sustained by the influence of your name, for under the 
circumstances of your case that name must lose its power. 



But you have sought to strengthen yourself by an 
appeal to the patriots of other countries. You say 
that our government is their envy and admiration — 
that it realizes their brightest day dreams. You attri- 
bute the clearness of their vision in this matter to their 
elevation above the "smoke and dust" of our party dis- 
putes. I wonder that it did not occur to you, that eleva- 
tions are not favourable positions for seeing things as 
they are. The traveller who sees a country only from 
its eminences, may well imagine that it is all beautiful 
and fertile, a very paradise for the habitation of man. 
But let him descend from his elevation and traverse its 
hills and plains, and he may then know something of its 
rugged roads and impassable swamps ; he may no lon- 
ger wonder why the husbandman desires to forsake the 
barren fields that so long have mocked his labors. Ele- 
vation and distance may be very proper aids to the poet 
and painter, but the men who have to do with real life 
prefer to have a nearer view of things. The outer and 
foreign aspect of a government may be very attractive, 
and yet, he who has felt its sectional injustice and bitter 
discords, may prefer anarchy to such rule. 

The same objection applies to your appeal to the "men 
of the revolution," — "the patriots of the old school." You 
say that "they had a larger experience, that they were 
sounder thinkers, and wiser men than those of the present 
day." This is indeed a strange position. It is difficult to 
imagine how you could have written such a sentence, with- 
out perceiving its utter nonsense. If regarded as at all ap- 
plicable to the present discussion, it amounts to your 
maintaining, that they who formed our government, knew 
more of its workings than we do, who have had trial there- 
of for two generations; it asserts, that their guesses at the 
future were clearer than our knowledge of the past. 
This were indeed to stultify ourselves, that we might 
pay homage to the wisdom of the dead. Even if appeal 
to the wisdom of former times were pertinent to the 
question, I doubt whether their testimony would be 
wholly on your side. The extracts you have quoted 



show that their authors prized the Union. But you have 
told us that it is well to grow wiser as we grow older, 
and it required but the experience of a few years to con- 
vince many of those who formed our constitution, that 
the Union was not to be adhered to under all circum- 
stances. Mr. Jefferson saw disunion in the Missouri 
question; so did Mr. Pinckney. And there is not a 
doubt, but that for the compromise of that question, the 
Union would have been severed, with the approval 
of the very patriots to whose opinions you appeal. 
Claiming, then, that your arguments must stand in their 
own strength, let us consider your reasons for union, 
and then examine the causes for disunion. 

You consider the confederation as the source of all our 
blessings. You maintain that to it are to be attributed 
the glory and prosperity we have already attained — that 
it has enabled us to bid defiance to foreign aggression — 
that it has given free trade to a continent larger than all 
Europe — that it has preserved us in internal peace, from 
border disputes, civil wars or military despotism. These 
blessings were enough to hallow the Union in our affec- 
tions Were the picture you have drawn only half real, 
I would heartily join you to cry woe upon the hand that 
would tarnish it. But the fierce and angry denuncia- 
tions of a wronged people, proclaim it a dream of your 
heated fancy, a portrait in which scarcely one feature 
of the original is retained. 

I would deny to the Union none of its merits. It was 
once needful to give us consideration abroad, and by it 
the powers of Europe fear and respect us. In that res- 
pect it has accomplished its purpose, and brought us 
successfully to the day of strength ; this was a reason 
for its existence, but none for its continuance. We may 
now divide, and yet have all the strength necessary to 
the maintenance of our rights. Each portion would still 
be stronger than were the whole in the day of our strug- 
gles. If there be reasons for this division, it were folly 
to suffer a blind reverence for the past to hinder us. Such 
superstition would have ever prevented our independence 



by binding us indissolubly to the government of England. 
' Your next claim for the Union, I cannot allow to be 
an unmixed blessing. It is much for a continent so large 
as ours to enjoy an unlimited intercourse, to be tree from 
police, spy or custom house regulations ; for each citi- 
zen of one State to have perfect liberty and privilege in 
every other, is truly desirable. But is it true that we 
enjoy equally such liberty ? The New Englander may 
send" his cloths and his brooms, his inventions and no- 
tions, and even his rum and whiskey, to every State of 
the Union and to the Territories ; but the slave-holder 
may not send his slaves to the mines of California, or 
even sell them in the District of Columbia. The tra- 
veller from the North may traverse our States in any di- 
rection, and bring with him the servants to whom he is 
accustomed, and whose attendance are necessary to his 
comfort. Yet the Southerner who travels North, must 
leave at home the servants necessary to his family, and 
depend upon such service as accident or the power of 
money may furnish him. This perfect freedom of inter- 
course, is not only unequal in its operation, but is also 
dangerous to us. It admits to our society the enemy of 
our institutions, the disturber of our peace; it distributes 
through the slave-holding States the myriad missives of 
those, who would rejoice to see us engaged in a servile 
war. But suppose that all that you claim were admitted, 
and that this perfect freedom of trade and intercourse 
were an unmingled blessing; might it not still be purchased 
too dearly? You have heard of the lad who paid too much 
for his whistle, and there have been found in this respect, 
nations of grown up boys. In our case, we pay for this 
freedom of internal trade, at the price of a restricted 
commerce with the world. It has cost us the life blood 
of southern prosperity. By it, northern rapacity has 
torn our rich legacy from our grasp, and having grown 
strong upon our resources, now uses that strength to our 
injury. It were better for your cause that you had not 
turned our thoughts to this " blessing" of the Union, this 
precious boon of free trade, It suggests to us nothing 



6 

but remembrances of injury and injustice. It reminds 
us of the times when our State, even to obtain a measure 
of justice, niggardly doled out, found it necessary to pre- 
pare for war. 

Nor will your claim, that the Union preserves our inter- 
nal peace, be found to rest on any more substantial foun- 
dation. You have chosen to furnish us no proof whatever 
of this position. You have referred to no disputes between 
the States which the Union has been called on to settle. 
The General Government could have no power to set- 
tle differences between the States, except as an umpire 
in case of agreement to refer, and any other neutral gov- 
ernment could as well exercise that power. That the 
General Government understand this to be its true 
position, is shown, by its forbearing to interfere in the 
differences between Virginia and New York, on the sub- 
ject of fugitive slaves. And though South Carolina now 
enforces certain material restrictions upon all vessels of 
New York coming into her ports, and likewise defies the 
claim of Massachusetts as to her colored citizens; yet 
we have never heard that the General Government pre- 
tended a right to settle these differences. There is noth- 
ing then to show that the Union is the cause of our peace. 
The fact that other States, that were not united, have 
had constant feuds and wars with each other, is no proof 
that it would have been so with us. Such an argument 
is easily rebutted by referring to the Mexican States. 
They were united, and were also subjected to constant 
wars with each other, until their union ended in a central 
military despotism. We then, deny, that our peace has 
been attributable in any respect to the General Govern- 
ment. Our common interest, and community of feeling, 
arising from the joint struggles of the revolution, are the 
causes thereof. We had then no union, except such as 
allied sovereigns may have, and our union of feeling was 
stronger under that alliance, than it has ever been under 
the present form of government. In fact, the confede- 
ration has been the mother of discord and bitter heart- 
burnings. There all our differences have commenced 



and widened. England and France are non-slave-holding 
countries, and yet, we have with (hem, not a mere show 
of peace, but real fellowship of feeling, whilst with the free 
States of our confederacy, we have constant contention 
and turmoil. Why this difference ? Who can doubt that 
the union is the moving cause ? And so long as the ene- 
mies of our instutions may use the power of the com- 
mon government, to disturb us, just so long must we look 
for contention. The breach must continue to widen, until 
fierce and uncontrollable civil war be the result. 

But suppose the union did give us peace, are there no 
dangers other than border wars ? Every school boy has 
heard of the Scylla and Charybdis. You warn us loudly 
of the dangers of the one, but seem to be deaf yourself 
to the roarings of the other. Let us be careful, whilst 
we avoid the obscurity of petty States, that we do not 
subject ourselves to the tyranny of consolidation. Mex- 
ico has shared that fate. England, Scotland and Ireland, 
are now sabject to one central power. Our own history 
has proved, that the General Government is fast tending 
that wav, and that the States, with all their watchful jea- 
lousy, have not been able to resist her encroachments. 
She is fast centering all power in herself, and the time 
may soon come, when in the insolence of consolidated 
power, her sword may be cast into the scale that deter- 
mines the dearest rights of the States. She may then 
indeed, give us peace, such peace as stern rulers give 
to those who are forced to submit. If it were therefore 
clear, that we have to choose between even the conten- 
tion and obscurity of petty States, and the peace and 
glory of such a government — the result might be in favor 
of the former ; unbroken peace, like internal free trade, 
may cost us too much. And if we must choose between 
terrible evils, the lute measures of the General Govern- 
ment may be some earnest, as to which is likely to be 
the greater. 

And now, if the question of disunion were to be deter- 
mined upon the very matters in which you consider the 
Union so great a blessing, the decision might still be 



8 

against you. But when we consider the other great 
questions which you have not touched, or even hinted 
at, the matter becomes no longer doubtful. I might urge 
the fact, that we desire disunion, that we might be freed 
from the dominion of a majority, whose political creed 
is their interest, and whose religion is fanaticism. I might 
show that we consent to our own degradation, when we 
remain in common bonds with those who regard us as 
their moral and religious inferiors, and who use the com- 
mon halls of our government, to give constant expres- 
sion to that feeling. I might enlarge upon the iniquitous 
measure of the government, in the enactment of an une- 
qual and oppressive tariff. Jt might be proved, that mil- 
lions of our common treasure has been expended to ad- 
vance the prosperity of the Northern States; but these, 
and all other minor matters, I consent to waive. The 
South has borne, and could yet bear them, and they sink 
into insignificance before the one great matter of federal 
injustice. The burden of that complaint, is, that the north 
constantly uses the power of the Union for the destruc- 
tion of our institutions. 

If this complaint be just, then no reasonable being can 
doubt, that we ought at once to sever this connection. 
Let us see whether this charge be justly made, and to do 
so, let us notice some of the long past, as well as the late 
measures of the government. 

You cannot deny, that slavery is an institution that 
the South is determined to maintain. It is so interwoven 
with all her interests, that not only her prosperity, but 
her very existence is dependant upon it. Any one, there- 
fore, who has any knowledge of the spirit by which this 
institution is maintained, must see that any direct attack 
upon it must prove vain and fruitless. Foreign powers 
have no means of reaching it, but by universal combina- 
tion or open war, and these are forbidden by their own 
commercial interests. It remains, therefore, for our own 
government to destroy slavery if it ever be done, for no 
other power can do it. The North understands this full 
well, and hence its efforts to gain and use, to that end, the 
power of the government. No act indeed has been passed 





for the abolition of slavery, this would have been to defeat 
their purposes; we were too strong for an open and direct 
attack. To use the moral weight of the government m 
condemning the institution ; to repudiate slavery as in- 
consistent with our professions as lovers of freedom, to 
limit the area of slavery so as to diminish its weight in 
the government, and finally to render it unproductive, 
were more sure to lead to the end proposed. The wis- 
dom of ages could devise no other method so certainly 
effective. And yet, these measures so sure to effect 
our ruin, have been adopted and carried out by the Union 
you so highly prize. Such has been the tendency of her 
acts from the time of the confirmation of the ordinance 
of 1787, down to the purchase of the territory of Texas. 
The act of confirmation excluded slavery from the rich 
Territories of the Northwest, thereby depriving slave- 
holding States of a share in the territory, once their own. 
True, the excuse then, was, the diminishing the induce- 
ment to the African slave-trade; the slave States then had 
the power, and fanaticism gained its end by a hollow 
pretence. Soon, however, the growing population of the 
free States, gave them the power in the house, and then 
the design of the North to direct the power of the gov- 
ernment against the slave interest, became at once ap- 
parent. Every politician is familiar with the history of 
the Missouri question. The aim of the free States in 
refusing to that State admission into the Union, is well 
known ; in this refusal they persisted, and to the shame 
and disgrace of the Southern States, they assented to a 
compromise, limiting the area of slavery. This compro- 
mise still stands upon the statute book, the solemn evi- 
dence that our government condemns and repudiates sla- 
very. We are bound to believe, that the South acqui- 
esced in this measure only from strong love to the Union; 
rather than sever the tie, she submitted to the disgrace, 
and hoped that here would be an end of it. Not so the 
North. With her, it was the entering wedge, and she 
waited only the time and opportunity for further aggres- 
sion. Both have come, and well have they been used. 
When Oregon applied for a territorial government, there 
2 



10 

was no fear of slavery being extended to that region, and 
yet the majority in Congress chose to permit her to remain 
without a government, rather than pass a bill in which 
there was no clause prohibiting slavery. Who can 
doubt, that the sole object for insisting upon that clause, 
was to brand the institution of slavery, with the disap- 
probation of the government ? It can scarcely be thought 
that the North is weak enough to desire legislation, 
merely to insult us, or for idle, inoperative ends.. 
Not so : the purpose was clear and avowed — to use 
against slavery the moral power of the Union. For 
this, the hollow Missouri compromise was rejected by the 
North; they never intended to keep it, or any other. 
The South true to her engagements, offered to adhere 
to that compromise, though it degraded her; but the 
North had gained new strength, and no compromise with 
slavery, became her motto. 

Of a like character with the above, has been the 
course of the government in reference to the consti- 
tutional provision as to fugitive slaves. She passed 
the act of 1793, but made no adequate provision for 
its execution. The owner was permitted to seize his 
slave, (if he could catch him,) but it was made the duty 
of no officer to aid him. It was well known, that this 
law soon became odious to many of the free States., 
and that their officers were forbidden to aid in its exe- 
cution; and yet Congress refused to provide for the 
deficiency. It was well known, that many of the judges 
required of the owner, claiming a slave, the most string- 
ent evidence, and refused to be satisfied when the strict- 
est rules of law were complied with; and yet the govern- 
ment neglected or refused to provide any remedy for the 
injured owner. This delay of the government continued, 
until fugitive slaves from the South have become so nu- 
merous in the Northern States,and in many of their cities, 
that they are sufficiently strong to combine,and take pub- 
lic measures for a common defence. In the mean time, a 
generation has grown up, educated in the belief that the 
government discountenanced the surrender of these fugi- 
tive slaves, and they now look upon this right of ours, as 



11 

one to be despised and resisted. Ministers boldly preach 
from the pulpit, that the fugitive slave has the right, nay 
that it his duty, to kill the man that attempts to recapture 
him; and the Rev. Theodore Parker, solemnly declares 
to a Boston congregation, that were he such fugitive, he 
would "kill the man, that laid hands on him, with as lit- 
tle compunction as he would brush a mosquito from his 
face." Large public meetings have advised resistance to 
the law, and pronounce its repeal. Do you pretend that 
the government is not responsible for this state of feel- 
ing? Her delays of justice, her criminal negligence, have 
produced it. The matter has been urged by Southern 
men, yet the power of the North has prevented action. 
If then, the current of opposition to our constitutional 
rights, has swelled into an uncontrollable whirlwind, it is 
because the government refused to check its incipiency. 
And now who can pretend that the present inetfectual 
attempt to enforce this constitutional provision, is meant 
as an act of justice to us? We want no such justice. It 
is but the flimsy covering, whereby to conceal from us 
the giant forms of injustice, which sprung full armed from 
the brain of fanaticism. At one sweep, slavery has been 
excluded from the vast territories of the West, and the 
shores of the Pacific, and in return — the fugitive slave law 
that slept so long, will be waked up for a season. Has the 
Almighty determined to destroy, that he should first make 
fools of us? Where has our reason fled, that the north 
should think thus to limit, weaken, and degrade us, whilst 
we, good easy victims, stand chuckling over the triumphs 
of the fugitive slave law ? Unless the South is now true 
to herself, her doom is forever sealed, her sceptre has 
departed, and she must remain content to stand in the 
eye of the civilized world, as a governed, proscribed, 
and morally inferior people. 

If all other proofs were wanting, of the determination 
of the government, to bring about this result, her late 
measures, rightly viewed, were sufficient to convince 
even the most sceptical. And here, let me remark, that 
in discussing those measures, I am not to be diverted from 
my purpose, by disputing with you, whether they be con- 



12 

stitutional or not. The constitution has heen so often vio- 
lated, in its spirit at least, that its infraction no longer ex- 
cites attention. Let the constitutionality of the measures 
you contend for, be yielded, and the still, graver question 
remains,whether the acknowledged powers of the govern- 
ment have not been so directed as to inflict upon us irre- 
parable injury. If so, my charge is made out, though I 
allege no excess of power, no infraction of the constitu- 
tion. And now for the burden of those measures. You 
cannot have forgotten, that immediately after the com- 
mencement of the war with Mexico, the north proclaimed 
that there should be no more slave territory. The pur- 
pose to exclude this institution from all the territory then 
held or to be acquired by the United States, was boldly 
and openly avowed. Can you, or any other reasonable 
person deny, that this purpose has been successfully ac- 
complished, and that, either directly or indirectly, by the 
measures of the general government 1 Does not the 
North claim, and the South admit, that slavery is exclu- 
ded from the whole of those territories, and that they 
are irrevocably devoted to free-soilism? You clearly admit 
that such has been the result, when you undertake to 
show, that the government is not responsible for it, and 
amuse us with your quibble on the power of Congress 
over the Mexican law. I freely admit, that Congress has 
no right to pass a law, either establishing or prohibiting 
slavery in the territories. And yet I contend, that it is 
not only clear that she has the right to repeal all the 
Mexican laws of force in the territory acquired, but also 
that it was her duty to do it, so far as such repeal was 
necessary to give all her citizens equal rights therein. 

I can scarcely suppose, that any one, expecting his 
opinions to be respected,would venture to assert,that the 
repeal of a prohibitory law, would amount to the estab- 
lishment of the thing prohibited. Congress has no right 
to establish a religion, and yet it would have been her duty 
to repeal the Mexican law, prohibiting the protestant re- 
ligion, if that had not been effected by the constitution. In 
repealing that law, no one would have supposed that the 
Protestant religion would have been thereby established. 



13 

Neither in repealing the law prohibiting slavery,would she 
have established it, but it would still be a matter to be pro- 
hibited or established, as the people in forming a State 
Constitution might elect. In refusing or neglecting this re- 
peal, the government has palpably and purposely lent her 
power to the free-soilers, and has deprived us of our 
share of the territory. This purpose of government so 
apparent, as to the Mexican territory, is put beyond all 
dispute in the Texan purchase. By a pretence of settling 
a boundary line,which was not disputed until the free-sod 
movement grew into power, the government has applied 
ten millions of the public treasury to purchase the Ter- 
ritory of Texas, and that for the unconcealed purpose of 
subjecting it to the Mexican anti-slavery law. Will you 
pretend, that Congress is not responsible for the exclu- 
sion of slavery from this Territory? Will you say, that 
this too, is the operation of the Mexican law ? I know 
not what a partisan of the Union might say to justify this 
matter, but this I know, that if an individual were to 
commit a like breach of trust, he would be regarded as un- 
worthy the confidence or countenance of any honest man. 
And now slavery has been excluded from California, 
New Mexico and a part of Texas. Directly or indirectly 
the Union has done it. These acts, constitutional or 
not, fill up the cup of our injustice. Added to the long 
list of measures tending that way, they establish conclu- 
sively the fixed purpose of the government to degrade, 
limit, and thus destroy our institutions. And yet you 
tell us not to be angry or indignant ! to wait for some- 
thing more definite ! Have you ventured to look forward 
even for a few years, and to estimate the consequences 
of this delay. Remember, that in all our struggles with 
Northern aggression, her power in the House was ever 
checked by the equilibrium of the Senate. To destroy 
this equilibrium, was her constant aim. In this she 
has at last succeeded. Now the power is theirs in both 
houses, and in a few years, as the territories, which the 
freesoilers have torn from us, become peopled by emi- 
grants from Europe, from the Northern States, and even 
by the adventurous from Southern States, that power 



14 

will swell into an irresistible majority. If in the day of 
equal power, we have had such earnest of aggression, 
what may we not expect in the day of their strength ? 
Fanaticism is not accustomed to struggle for power 
without a purpose. As soon may you expect the tiger 
to abandon unhurt the victim it has within its power, as 
to hope that the North will deviate from its fixed purpose 
to abolish slavery. Let us sleep on now for a few years 
and we will then be roused to find the slaveholding States 
struggling with a government in which they will be a 
weak and hopeless minority. Confined to a limited area, 
surrounded and hedged in on all sides by a population 
hostile to their institutions, condemned by their own 
government to a moral inferiority, they will have no 
choice but to submit, and no rights but such as a majority 
may choose to allow them. Who of us is prepared for 
this ? Who can look forward composedly to such a 
contingency as possible ? And yet to avoid it, requires 
of us present action. The territories, of which we have 
been unjustly deprived, are yet unpeopled ; a Southern 
confederacy might now tear them from the grasp of free- 
soilism • in spite of the stealth and treachery of an unjust 
government, we may still regain for ourselves room to 
live and grow. But if we submit now, those territories 
will soon grow into States, and, once admitted to the 
present Union, all hope of their sympathy or union with 
us will have passed away. We must then be contented 
to move in our prison bounds, thus limited by our own 
inactivity and fatal delay. 

Since then we have so sensibly felt the injustice and 
partiality of the present government; seeing that under 
her rule our danger is imminent and our final destruction 
almost sure, it would ill become us to be frightened from 
our purpose, by the ghostly sound of a word, or by evil 
forebodings of consequences that may never follow. 
Disunion was a term once pronounced with hesitation 
and trembling, but that day has past. It may now serve 
to alarm those who require the lullabies of the nurse ; 
for bearded men it has no terrors. You predict that it 
will be followed by separate State governments, and that 



15 

thus we shall become the prey of all, "a by-word among 
nations." Your prophetic vision seems in this matter 
to be somewhat obscured by an indefinable, hallowed 
cloud, which time has thrown over the present Union. 
You have even so far forgotten its history, as to imagine 
it to be hallowed by the struggles of the revolution. And 
yet you know that it was formed after the revolution had 
been successful, and even after two of the States hnd 
withdrawn from the old confederacy. So far from the 
present Union being the result of any consecration by 
our struggle for liberty, it was a matter of pure calcula- 
tion of interest. The smaller States refused to join in it, 
until the larger ones consented to give up their territo- 
ries. Even then care was taken to keep up the power 
of the former by an equality of representation in the 
Senate, and by a careful limitation of the powers of the 
government. The whole matter shows that the consti- 
tution was the result of calculation, and a careful balan- 
cing of power, and not the rushing together of a people 
bound to each other by a nameless sentiment. If con- 
siderations of common interest were sufficiently strong 
then to form the present Union, may they not prove 
equally strong to unite the South ? What has happened 
before, is likely to take place again under similar cir- 
cumstances. We are the same people ; the interests of 
the South are more in common than were those of the 
old thirteen : we have more fellowship of feeling, and 
are more kindred in our association ; the population of 
the several Southern States has been made up by emi- 
gration from one to the other ; every thing conspires 
to make our Union likely, necessary, and desirable. Why 
then should we disturb ourselves with your ghostly predic- 
tions of "petty State governments," and "obscure wars ?" 
Is it that our character has changed, and that instead of 
being a law and order loving people, we have become to 
prefer strife and misrule ? Or is it that we have tasted 
so much of the bitterness of the present Union, that we 
shall be averse to another ? Our experience of the latter 
might indeed be fatal, were it not that in all our just in- 
dignation and excitement, we can still see that our injus- 



10 

tice was only the abuse, and not the necessary result of 
the Union. But we are not prepared to reject entirely 
this machinery of prosperity and strength, merely be- 
cause wicked hands once perverted it into an engine of 
destruction. Rather let us suppose that we have learned 
from the past lessons of wisdom, and that in a Southern, 
confederacy we may unite the blessings and avoid the 
dangers of the present Union. 

In conclusion, I desire to explain more fully my views 
of our true remedy. By present, immediate, urgent ac- 
tion, I do not mean separate State action. I consider 
the dissolution of the Union necessary to our safety, and 
a matter desirable in itself, I would therefore avoid all 
measures merely leading to a compromise. The North 
never has kept, never will keep to its engagements, and 
if its character in this respect were better, that would not 
alter the case, for compromises are not what we seek. 
We desire peace, safety, freedom, from aggression, and 
liability to insult. Any compromise of this question, 
would, itself be an insult, and would still leave in full ac- 
tion all the machinery of the government already in mo- 
tion for our ruin. Nothing can stop this action, and put 
us in a position of safety, but a Southern confederacy. 
Believing this, I deprecate any movement, which might 
prevent or retard the Union of the South. That Union 
should be one of a people, roused to the same feeling, 
and joined together by a common interest. They should 
feel that they have joined willingly, and as equals, and that 
the cause of each, is the cause of all. This result could not 
be accomplished,if a single State were to precipitate mea- 
sures, without due conference with her sister States. It be- 
comes us therefore, first to exhaust all the measures which 
may promise to bring about this unanimity of action. It 
becomes us to make sure work in the present movement, 
for the opportunity once lost, may never again be reason- 
bly expected. Our action should be decided and prompt, 
but its purpose and aim should be, to bring the other 
States up to our position. We should make due allow- 
ance for their present situation. We have been united, 
whilst they have been divided, on the old party grounds. 



17 

They are now struggling to break from their former 
ranks, and take position in the new organization. This 
must be a work of time. The people must be taught 
that their old party leaders are deceiving them. Those 
leaders themselves, may, in many instances, be brought 
to a sense of their folly. If, whilst this struggle is going 
on, and a spirited and determined party in the other 
States are manfully battling for our cause, we should pre- 
cipitate measures by acting alone, the result would be 
to change the issue, and in a great measure to paralyze 
the strength of those who are on our side. If we act 
separately before one or more of the other States be 
ready to move with us, our course will be the condemna- 
tion of their inactivity, and even should they afterwards 
join us, from necessity, it would be with a sullen spirit, 
and not with that alacrity and warmth which is so neces- 
sary to our common peace and strength. But if they 
refuse to follow us, the necessities of our position would 
force us into another compromise, which would serve as 
a mere patch, to cover and conceal the wounds it could 
never heal. 

But let us hope for better things. The States that 
groan under the same injuries with us, are not likely to 
prove false to themselves. The progress of our cause 
has been even more rapid and irresistible than the most 
sanguine could have hoped for. But a year ago disunion 
was breathed only in whispers; now its banner is boldly 
raised in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and other 
Southern States. A bold and determined people are 
bearing it onward. The dissolution of the Union is al- 
most inevitable; its end is nigh. We have but to encour- 
age and cheer our sisters, and to prepare ourselves for 
the conflict, that is coming. This is no time to listen to 
the voice of passion, or to follow the councils of the 
rash. The issues are too momentous to be put in jeo- 
pardy by a heedless step. The occasion requires of us 
to prepare and husband our resources; to look to the 
great end to be reached, and coolly to adopt such mea- 
sures as are sure to attain it. That end is the Union of 
the South, and a separation from the North. One ill ad- 

3 



18 



vised act may raise an impassible barrier to the wave 
hat ls now rolling on to this result. Once hindered In 
its progress, it may break and roll backward forever 
Very respectfully, 

your obedient servant, 

ANOTHER OF THE PEOPLE. 



LIBRARY OF C0NGRE ^ 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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